


when we were young

by lilliebythesea



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Older Characters, POV Alternating, POV Third Person, Post-Career of Evil, Reunited and It Feels So Good
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 10:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19424428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilliebythesea/pseuds/lilliebythesea
Summary: Twelve years have passed since Strike sacked Robin, and Robin married accountant Matthew. Like planets within orbit of each other, the two have co-existed in London, with their lines drawn, divided countries at an uncertain truce. Until fate brings them together again, middle-aged, but perhaps not the wiser.[Post CoE, no Lethal White.]





	1. PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first delve into writing Strike/Robin fanfic, although I've been a fan of the series for years. This is a plot-bunny I've had for the past few days that refused to go away. Who says romance belongs only to the young?

_"Have you forgotten what we were like then_  
_when we were still first rate_  
_and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth.."_

["Animals" _by Frank O'Hara_](https://www.frankohara.org/writing/)

Strike was never one to think of things in _what-ifs_. Outside of cases, that is.

However, he wondered what would have happened if he had interrupted Robin Ellacott’s wedding.

Excuse him. Robin _Cunliffe_.

(He saw the notice in the paper.)

He never would have thought Robin as a woman who took her husband’s last name.

When Robin did not return his _please-come-back_ calls, Strike received the message, loud and clear. Middle-class Robin had washed her soft manicured hands of the shady detective work business. She instead settled for a secure bank account and a tall brownstone with climbing ivy.

Good for her. Cheers.

He lifted his pint – the first of many – to his lips. Only tonight would he allow himself to wallow like a lovesick teenager. Then he would bury the what-ifs, and the hurt feelings, and anything else inappropriate.

After the disastrous hurricane that was Charlotte, and all she had left in her wake, Strike had become very good at compartmentalizing.

* * *

Despite the best of her intentions, after the wedding ceremony and the limousine ride from the chapel, Robin Cunliffe’s eyes continued to drift towards the grand entryway of the hotel.

As the newlywed took a bite of fluffy white cake, she recalled the romantic-comedies of her girlhood.

 _This_ was when the intended love interest was supposed to knock down the doors, break the barricade, to confess his adoration and intentions in front of a scandalized crowd. Then the spurned groom would perhaps initiate a brawl, or sulk in the corner, as he realized he had lost the protagonist’s affections.

However, Robin reprimanded herself, this was not a movie, intended for entertainment with a carefully-crafted happy ending.

Instead, this was her white wedding to her bland husband. Not bland. Normal.

(She could not even call this _her_ wedding, not really, when she had delegated so much of it to her new mother-in-law.)

No Cormoran Strike, all broad-shouldered and heavy-fisted, was going to crash through the doors like a bull in a china shop. No Strike was going to beg for her to come back to the agency. This grim truth, in all its brutal honesty, tasted worse than the over-sweet wedding cake.

She idly chewed the piece in her mouth. The icing stuck to the her gums and teeth.

“Everything all right, Robin?” Matthew asked, tone sharp in Robin’s ear.

Robin startled. His breath, tainted by both champagne and cake, tickled her skin. She met his gaze and wondered if she had imagined the slight hostility in his eyes. Perhaps it was just overprotectiveness, which would have been flattering in another life, with a different woman.

Overtly aware of their audience’s attention, Robin swallowed and offered a close-lipped smile, and replied: “Nothing, Matthew. Nothing at all.”

Her husband placed a solid kiss on her lips. “We made it,” he said, as if they had finished a football match, or a marathon. As congratulatory and anti-climatic as a high-five.

Robin angled that hard-earned purple scar on her arm towards the crowd. A grim reminder of what she had lost.

* * *

An estimated 8.7 million individuals lived in London.

London stretched for an expansive 607 square miles.

Within reason, such figures should have made it a Herculean task for Strike to encounter the Cunliffes, especially when he only wanted to avoid them.

Due to his upbringing, Strike had never found security in something as intangible as religion. However, after glimpsing Robin Cunliffe shortly after her wedding, red-golden head bowed against the northern wind, Strike contemplated the existence of a malevolent being.

Robin had _chosen_ to walk away from the agency and not return his phone calls, he reasoned. So, in conclusion, there was no reason for her to lurk near Denmark Street.

Regardless of her betrayal, upon catching that glimpse of her, as if she were an endangered species in the wild, Strike's gut hitched forwards. His neck snapped away from her direction. He peeked another look at her before she disappeared into the crowd.

When needing to discuss cases, the desire to converse with Robin was almost as strong as the itch to scratch his missing limb, right below the knee, where he once had a scar from boyhood. His employees rarely proposed their own ideas, as if afraid of offending him and his massive bulk.

Robin was another phantom limb. Another name to add to the increasingly long list of losses.

* * *

As the months passed, and more cases notched his belt, the name “Cormoran Strike” graced the telly more often than not. An overnight celebrity, he was a constantly unwelcome presence in the Cunliffe household, lingering behind closed doors, and sitting at the kitchen table.

Matthew would quickly change the channel. Clear his throat. Mutter something about “getting rid of that nasty business”, or “the ugly bastard”.

Robin refused to honor her husband's jealousy with acknowledgement. Instead, she delved deeper into whichever assignment remained incomplete for her paralegal classes. She sat at the kitchen table, hunched over, with a mug of tea next to her notes. Sometimes the tea would be cool before she'd remember to drink.

(If she tried hard enough, she could almost imagine that she was back at the office.)

The taste of the law, and what she experienced while working at Strike’s agency, was more addictive than any drug. She knew Matthew would not let her join the police force without an uphill climb, but law school was a compromise.

 _“Give it your best shot, honey,”_ her mother had said, once, after the wedding. She purposefully avoided looking at Robin’s eight-inch scar. “ _It’s_ Matthew, _after all_.”

Matthew. The safety net to always catch her. Perhaps she should have been thankful, but resentment simmered beneath the surface of her skin. She was surprised that Matthew, smart enough to wrestle with stubborn fellow accountants and to climb the executive ladder, did not detect the insistent humming of her frustration.

* * *

The years ticked forward, one digit after the next, increasing speed. Neither party left London, and they instead wandered its streets on their respective sides, like enemy countries in an uneasy truce. Planets constantly in danger of colliding and sending astronomical repercussions throughout the universe.

Strike and Robin would not speak to each other for another 12 years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank y'all for reading this brief prologue! It's rather short but I promise later chapters will be longer. :)


	2. 12 YEARS LATER -- PRESENT DAY

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaah, thank y'all so much for the kind words and kudos! It's been so long since I have written fanfiction, so I'm happy to know that people are enjoying my work. I hope this chapter meets y'all's expectations. xoxo

_“…it's no use worrying about Time_

_but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves_

_and turned some sharp corners…”_

“Mz Cunliffe, ah ’ppreciate everything you’ve done fer me, so don’t tae this the wrong way, but—”

Robin Cunliffe leaned back in her desk chair. She rubbed one of her arthritic fingers. The cold winter air, despite her best efforts, slipped through the cold windows of her third-floor office.

“—ah sought help elsewhere—”

“Freddie—” Robin began.

“—and ah can only ’fford so much, you understand—”

Robin closed her mouth. Freddie Boone and his tangent, she realized, would continue like a train towards its destination, unaware of the wreck waiting for its end. She would have to finish the ride with him.

“—so, ya, Mz Cunliffe, ah hope you understand.”

Robin exhaled through her nose. “I’m sorry, but understand what, Freddie?”

Her patience with Boone, and his appearances in and out of her one-woman office throughout the years, had weathered thin.

Boone’s red-rimmed eyes refused to meet her gaze. “Ah found someone else to help me, Mz Cunliffe.”

Robin rubbed the side of her index finger thoughtfully. The middle joint ached beneath her touch. If she stayed silent enough, she knew, Boone would elaborate without her vocalizing encouragement

“’E knows people, you understand, ’nd ‘e says ’e can help me get my Rebecca back. Find some dirt on tha’ bitch Cora.”

She decided to ignore the crass terms against Boone’s ex-wife. Divorce was never cut-and-dry.

Robin knew that better than anyone.

“Blackmail is illegal, Freddie,” Robin enunciated. “You understand that, yes? You don’t want to go back to prison, Freddie. You don’t want to hurt Rebecca more.”

“Right enough, Mz Cunliffe.” The man had enough decency to appear appropriately apologetic. “But ah’d do anything fer my Rebecca. Cora ain’t treatin’ ’er right. Never ’ad.”

“Then I hope you understand this is where our client-lawyer confidentiality ends,” Robin explained. She leaned forwards and sat her elbows on the edge of her desk. She clasped her hands. “I will keep to myself everything you’ve told me to this point. I understand the love and loyalty for a daughter. But what you say onwards, I might be legally obligated to report.”

“Yes, Mz Cunliffe, thank you.” Boone bobbed his head up and down in agreement, much like a stork. He stood up from the chair, and his knees knocked against her desk. A picture frame, propped on the desk, fell forwards. Boone’s lanky frame began to walk towards the door. “Oh, sorry, Mz — ah’ll be seein’ you—"

“Take care, Freddie,” Robin answered as she straightened the framed photograph. Blakeney, ten years old at the time, smiled from behind the glass.

Boone’s receding figure waved a hand in farewell. Robin watched him waver at the lift before he decided to take the stairs. Boone had always suffered from a bit of claustrophobia.

Gazing at the beige walls of her office, empty except for unoffensive paintings and her diplomas, Robin tapped a pen against the wooden surface of her desk. A rather unreliable client, Boone’s late payments would not be missed by Robin’s bank account. At this point, after seven years, she might as well have represented Boone _pro bono_.

Her deductive instinct, sharpened by years of practice, guessed whom Freddie Boone hired. As if tasting sour milk, her stomach twisted at the thought, and her lips tugged downwards.

Robin dedicated her career, from paralegal to lawyer, to resolving loose ends. However, one string left itself constantly unraveled, following her like a persistent stray.

* * *

Bored, and his legs stiff, Strike ached for a cigarette. But he had given them up. The decision was either that, or eat healthier, or exercise. Something other than indulging in sex, takeout, and cigarettes.

The bloody doctor said so.

Strike’s target, a short woman with long hair, had entered the primary school across the street. Strike shifted his weight. How long had he been standing there? How long did it take to retrieve a child?

He did not have the faintest idea.

“Mister? You gotta buy somethin’ or leave.” Someone tapped Strike on the shoulder, and the detective jumped. A small girl, no more than seventeen, stepped back, as if Strike had scared _her_. “I’m sorry, but—no loiterin’.” The girl – _a damned_ child _, really_ – gestured to a sign attached to the open storefront.

Strike grunted. He glanced at the primary school again. The woman, an elusive Cora Boone, was supposedly picking up her daughter, Rebecca. A young girl with dark hair, freckles, and uneven teeth. According to photos produced by Strike’s client, who was Rebecca’s father, with his rambling thoughts and strong accent.

Strike had yet to see the child himself.

“Small coffee. Black,” Strike finally answered the barista. It wasn’t her fault. He handed her a few crumpled dollar bills from his battered wallet.

The girl nodded and scurried away.

Times had changed, Strike thought to himself. Just a decade ago, he could stand on street corners for hours, and no one would bother him to say he had to buy or _bugger off_. Now, standing still for longer than five minutes was suspicious and cause for action.

Now, everyone considered themselves a detective, with social media and fancy spyware.

Strike struggled to keep up, sometimes, with his younger and faster competition. But he would die before he admitted that thought aloud, especially within earshot of friendly and overprotective Lorelei.

Ilsa had introduced the pair in a fit of desperation, wanting to see Strike happy, and not pining after _her_.

(God, was he eternally doomed to think of women in pronouns? As if their names themselves were spells, commanding the women into existence?)

Lorelei was a good cook, and a better partner in bed. Their causal relationship, off-and-on throughout the years, was currently switched to _on_. It lacked the dangerous intensity of his relationship with Charlotte, or the loyal confidence of his friendship with Robin.

His relationship with Lorelei was lukewarm like room-temperature tea. Comforting only in its familiarity.

“Here you go, sir.” The barista placed a small paper cup in front of him. Her manicured hand also offered the same crumpled dollar bills.

“What—?”

“The lady over there paid for you, sir.”

Strike glanced towards the back of the café.

A ghost stared back. She waved.

* * *

Robin checked the clock in the corner of the laptop screen. Her next client would not be in for another twenty minutes

Like an addict satisfying a craving, Robin opened the internet browser and began to type. Google suggested various alternatives, such as the cormorant bird, and the myth of the giant, Cormoran.

However, upon adding “Strike”, Robin found herself diving into a treasure trove of information, none of it outright supplied by Strike himself.

A creature of habit, Strike maintained his agency on Denmark Street.

His residential address was **[redacted]** , or unknown.

No comment on his marital status, although he was occasionally photographed with a woman in tow. The woman, Robin thought with twisted satisfaction, had a haircut that was much too young for her.

Several fan websites were dedicated to the detective despite his prickly nature. Robin’s lips twitched in a smile.

The lawyer stared at a pixelated photograph of Strike. His curly hair, while still black, had faded in vibrancy. Grey and white hairs speckled his beard. Frown lines dragged his mouth downwards, but his lips remained full, and his eyes remained alert and dark.

Robin lifted a hand to her mouth in thought. The tan line from her – now absent – wedding ring had yet to fade.

Had she and Strike finally _grown up?_

* * *

Robin Ellacott – _Cunliffe_ , Strike instinctively corrected himself – sat tucked in a corner booth. She cocked an eyebrow, inviting him over, suggesting an unlimited array of possibilities.

Strike blinked. He did the mental calculations. Robin was, what, twenty-nine? When he sacked her? She would be in her forties now.

Like an ageless mythological figure, this version of Robin, this _woman_ , remained in her twenties.

The mirage faded as quickly as it appeared.

The unfamiliar woman’s head was too red. Her cleft chin, while not entirely unattractive, made her face appear more masculine. Her face was much too narrow.

A woman looking for “older” fun, Strike decided. Or money, if she recognized him from the news. Either possibility was equally likely. He was only opposed to the latter, and that was because he did not have much money to spare for himself.

Strike gripped his coffee in one hand and stood from the table. His prosthesis shook before he righted himself. Lorelei was an abstract idea, and Cora Boone could wait for a few minutes.

He would not be going home alone tonight.

* * *

Robin stomped her feet in the cold.

Her stomach twisted and churned, like it had in her office, as if it had a mind of its own. She almost preferred the labor contractions from Blakeney, instead of this ugly uncertainty, and overwhelming fear, fighting for control.

Robin imagined herself standing on a precipice. Looking over the edge. Wanting to scramble backwards, but unable to do so, because she was mesmerized by the sight below.

Most of all, she wanted to change her mind.

Shoving her numb fingers into her coat pockets, Robin watched two figures approach. Their heads bowed in deep conversation, they walked from the corner of Denmark Street. She recognized Strike’s limping gait, and his bullish chest.

(Like an image imprinted in her mind’s eye, Robin knew she would recognize Strike anywhere.)

She waited in the stoop. She relished this moment of having the upper-hand over the man who broke her heart all those years ago.


End file.
